6. SIGN A CONTRACT

Now you wait some more. You have to give your agent time to read your proposal and float the idea around the office. If she loves it, she'll call in a couple of weeks. If she doesn't, she won't - it's like a bad relationship at this point. But, you need to get back on the market, so give her a friendly heads up if you haven't heard anything after six weeks: call the agent and say that you'll be passing on your proposal to another interested party if you still don't hear back within a week. If nothing, then go back to other agents who responded to your query and send it to one of them. Or if you didn't have any others biting at the query, start the whole process over again, either with a new book idea or simply with a fresh list of agents. There's a ton of both out there.

If you do hear good news, get psyched. You have an agent who wants to sign you. The best part is that you don't have to do any more work at this stage. The agent will send you a contract stating that she will attempt to sell your book using her best efforts and if she is, he will receive 15% of the deal. These contracts are only 1-2 pages long and don't usually need to be reviewed by an attorney. Just watch for two things: that the agent isn't looking to be your exclusive representative for more than a year (which is about the standard), and that she isn't going to charge you for the cost of office overhead if the book isn't sold.

Once you sign the contract they send you, make any changes to your proposal they suggest. They want to hone your piece into a selling machine. Once it's ready, they'll start making your pitch to publishing companies.

Getting the publishers to fork over cash for mere ideas is not an easy task, so be ready for your agent to forward you a number of negs from some of America's finer publishing houses. But comfort yourself by thinking about how badly you'd be abused by sending your manuscripts cold to these people.

When something does pan out, you're all set. Your agent will negotiate an advance for your book - as low as a few hundred dollars to as high as several thousand. Of course, the agent skims 15% for services rendered, but you're still sitting pretty. Cash the check and start writing your book. Send us a copy when you're done. For free, of course, cheapo.